BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 1187|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 1187
Author: Lara (D)
Amended: 8/11/16
Vote: 27 - Urgency
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 6-0, 6/27/16
AYES: Bates, Beall, Hill, McGuire, Mendoza, Nielsen
NO VOTE RECORDED: Lara
SENATE FLOOR: 30-5, 6/30/16
AYES: Allen, Bates, Berryhill, Block, Cannella, De León,
Gaines, Galgiani, Glazer, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez, Hertzberg,
Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu, McGuire,
Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Moorlach, Nguyen, Pan, Pavley,
Roth, Wieckowski
NOES: Anderson, Morrell, Nielsen, Stone, Vidak
NO VOTE RECORDED: Beall, Fuller, Huff, Runner, Wolk
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 74-3, 8/18/16 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Claims against the state: appropriation
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill appropriates $36.6 million from the General
Fund to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the payment of two
legal settlements. Any funds appropriated in excess of the
amounts required for payment of the claims would revert to the
General Fund.
Assembly Amendments add a recently-approved claim to pay a $36.3
million judgment against the state settled in favor of the Pauma
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Page 2
Band of Luiseño Mission Indians of the Pauma & Yuima
Reservation.
ANALYSIS: This bill is one of several annual bills carried by
the chairs of the Appropriations Committees to provide
appropriation authority for legal settlements and claims against
the state that are approved by DOJ and the Department of Finance
(DOF). The settlements specified in this bill were entered into
lawfully by the state upon advice of counsel (DOJ), and they are
binding state obligations.
This bill appropriates General Fund revenues related to the
following:
Settlement agreement for Ballona Wetlands Land Trust v. Santa
Monica Bay Restoration Commission. (Los Angeles County Superior
Court, Case No. BS154128) $220,000 settlement, plus interest,
payable from the General Fund. This claim is the result of
litigation involving a California Public Records Act dispute.
Petitioners, the Ballona Wetlands Land Trust (Land Trust) sought
records from the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission
(Commission) with the goal of proving that the Commission had
misused public grant funds in its management of a restoration
project.
The Commission responded by saying that the majority of the
records sought regarding the project were in the possession of a
separate, nongovernmental entity: a private non-profit called
the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Foundation (Foundation). The
Land Trust alleged that these two entities (the Commission and
the Foundation) were virtually identical, with shared staff and
a joint work plan, and that the Foundation should be subject to
Public Records Act requests relating to that partnership. The
Land Trust was told that only a subset of the requested records
would be disclosed, and in response, filed a petition for writ
of mandate in February of 2015.
In March of 2016, the Superior Court found in favor of the Land
Trust, awarding attorney's fees and compelling the Commission to
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disclose certain Foundation documents that the Court declared to
be public records, but not all documents requested by the Land
Trust. Attorneys for DOJ collaborated with counsel for the
Commission to negotiate a settlement of $220,000 for the payment
of a portion of the Land Trust's attorney's fees and costs. The
agreement also provides for the payment of interest on the
settlement amount at a rate of 7 percent per annum, calculated
daily from March 1, 2016, the date the Court issued its Final
Statement of Decision.
This bill provides an appropriation that includes the settlement
amount of $220,000 plus $15,400, or the equivalent of a full
year of interest payment. Staff notes that about half of the
allotted interest amount will revert to the General Fund,
assuming the bill is approved by the Legislature and signed by
the Governor by September.
Judgment against the state in Pauma Band of Luiseño Mission
Indians of the Pauma & Yuima Reservation v. State of California,
et. al. (United States District Court for the Southern District,
Case No. 09CV1955) $36,235,147.01 judgment, plus interest,
payable from the General Fund. In September, 2009, Pauma sued
the State seeking rescission of its 2004 amended Triable-State
gaming compact (2004 Amendment). In support of is rescission
claim, Pauma alleged that the State misrepresented the number of
gaming device licenses available under the parties' previous
1999 Tribal-State gaming compact. (1999 Compact) when the State
communicated that the license pool was exhausted December, 2003.
Pauma claimed that the misrepresentation induced it to enter
into the 2004 Amendment, which contained higher fees than the
1999 Compact. In support of the Pauma's claim that it was
entitled to rescission of the 2004 Amendment as a result of the
misrepresentation, Pauma relied on a 2009 district court
decision in another case, Cachil Dehe Band of Wintun Indians of
the Colusa Indian Community v. California, in which the court
determined that the 1999 Compact did in fact authorize more
licenses than the state said were available. In 2010, the Ninth
Circuit upheld the Colusa decision.
In 2014, the district court granted summary judgment to Pauma,
finding that, pursuant to the Colusa II decision, the State had
misrepresented the number of gaming device licenses under the
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1999 Compact and that Pauma had been induced to enter into the
2004 Amendments as a result. The district court thus ordered
the 2004 Amendment rescinded and Pauma restored to its 1999
Compact's license fee provisions, resulting in a refund of
$36,235,147.01, plus $85,139.60 in interest, due to Pauma from
the State, representing the total fees Pauma paid the Sate under
the 2004 Amendment over what it would have paid had it remained
under the 1999 Compact.
The state appealed the summary judgment in favor of Pauma. A
divided panel of the Ninth Circuit issued a published decision
upholding the district court's summary judgment in favor of
Pauma on the misrepresentation claim. The court upheld the
monetary award against the state, though the court regarded the
monetary relief as restitution flowing from rescission of the
2004 Amendment rather than specific performance, and found that
the State had waived its Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity
from monetary restitution awards by express waiver language in
the compacts.
The State filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the
United States Supreme Court, and the court denied the State's
petition on June 27, 2016. All avenues of appeal having been
exhausted, the judgment is final and the sum of $36,320,286.61
is due and payable to Pauma.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Yes Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee:
One-time appropriation of $235,400 in 2016-17 from the General
Fund to DOJ to pay the settlement related to Ballona Wetlands
Land Trust v. Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission.
One time appropriation of $35,320,286.61 in 2016-17 from the
General Fund to DOJ to pay the summary judgment and any
applicable interest in Pauma Band of Luiseño Mission Indians
of the Pauma & Yuima Reservation v. State of California, et.
al.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/19/16)
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None received
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/19/16)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 74-3, 8/18/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper,
Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Gallagher, Cristina
Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez,
Gordon, Gray, Hadley, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim,
Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis,
Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte,
O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez,
Salas, Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting,
Wagner, Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NOES: Chávez, Grove, Harper
NO VOTE RECORDED: Frazier, Beth Gaines, Roger Hernández
Prepared by:Mark McKenzie / APPR. / (916) 651-4101
8/19/16 20:05:01
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